Use the product feed to optimize dynamic product ads

January 30, 2021

After setting up your DPA campaigns, do you know what the most common thing is that you probably do?

Forget all about them.

And you probably do it on purpose, more or less. Which makes sense. The focus, after all, tends to shift to upper-funnel campaigns, as these often require more frequent replacement of ads and messages.

The idea is that customers cannot remember the ad from the last time they bought, which is often true and especially if the buying journey is short and the buying frequency is low.

But in the period when the ad is shown after, for instance a visit to a product page, there can be great potential in continuously keeping product images and messages fresh and relevant.

This is especially true on social media, where small changes can often make a potential customer stop and notice the ad.

There are several ways to capture the user's attention, but the most effective way is to work with the ad image, which in this case is the product images.

You can of course change the product images manually, which can work fine if there are relatively few products in the product catalog.

However, it quickly becomes confusing and time consuming if you are dealing with a larger product catalog.

Historically, it has been difficult to automate the process of updating product images, and we’ve been left to Facebook's built-in option, which is somewhat limited. 

Fortunately, today there are tools that can help with this, some more advanced than others. This is where the product feed comes into play.

Real-life case - How to significantly increase CTR

There is often plenty of product information available in the feed that can help increase performance by making the ads more relevant.

In the case below, the starting point was information about the product's brand, sale price, and whether it was part of a sales campaign.

Using a tool that continuously transformed product images based on information directly from attributes in the product feed, we went from a standard DPA ad to an ad that automatically changed each time a sales campaign was run.

The following changes were made:

  • New background which was more in the style of the design from the website.

  • Brand name of the product—recognizability increases and uses the brand value of the individual brand to create security.

  • Campaign Tag—when the product was part of a sales campaign, the name of that campaign was automatically included.

  • Percentage discount was automatically added when the product was reduced. This, together with the name of the sales campaign, creates an increased desire to click on the product, as one will not want to miss a great offer. Especially not on a product you have already shown interest in.

By adding the above, we managed to raise the CTR on all ad clicks from between 2–3% to 4–6%.

And with a budget of around 2 million DKK per year, an increase of 2–3% is nothing to sneeze at.

The above case requires that you have access to a tool that can help customize the images from the feed if you want to go a little further than the standard choices that Facebook offers.

There are now a number of tools that can do this and in a price range that suits most budgets and ambitions. But there are plenty of other ways to use the product feed to optimize its DPA campaign.

Here are some more examples:

  • Optimize the name of the product (title)—there are few characters to work with, and therefore it pays to test different versions of the product title.

  • Using alternative product images—Do you always use the nice exposed product image with a white background? Then you are not the only one and it often works very well. But if you have other product images available in the feed, then you can often pick up an increased performance, by eg using product images with models. It can also be something as simple as using an image as a background. The basic idea is to create an atmosphere around the product, which you as a consumer can relate to better and find more interesting.

  • Sort out low availability products—It goes without saying that products that are not in stock should be sorted out, but very few people go one step further and sort out products with low availability. For instance if you sell clothing or shoes, it can often be a good idea to sort out the products with only one size left, as the chance of them being sold is significantly less than other products, although they are often reduced.

The above are just some examples of optimizations one can make based on the feed, but there are plenty of other options.

And do keep in mind that one-size-fits-all products should not be included.

Avoid ad fatigue

One of the major problems with retargeting campaigns, especially those that appear a long time after, such as an abandoned basket, is that you do not really respond to the ad anymore.

You have seen it too many times and have grown tired of it.

In addition to finding the optimal number of impressions per day (frequency), then there is the bonus of adjusting the images continuously that it also counteracts ad fatigue.

What works for others may not work for you

All companies and target groups are different, and although there are some improvements that are universal, this is far from always the case.

That is why it is important to test changes on an ongoing basis.

And here there are really good opportunities e.g. via the menu item “Test and learn” in Facebook Business Manager.

For many advertisers, DPA campaigns are an “always on” campaign, which makes it a really good type of campaign to test. In addition, relatively few changes occur, which reduces the chance that the test will be interrupted, and the budget is often stable.

There are, of course, a lot of other variables, but that's probably some of the best you can hope for.